Pretty pictures are the best. But you know who likes them even more than your readers, leads, and customers? Marketers.

Well they should, anyway, because marketers who are embracing visual content are seeing huge returns in terms of, well, more readers, leads, and customers. Oh, also revenue. Not a bad setup. Whether you're already a champion of visual content and just want a little affirmation, or you're interested in dipping your toes into the burgeoning visual content space, these 19 statistics should help you make the case for doing just that.

19 Fascinating Statistics That Make the Case for Using Visual Content in Your Marketing

1) 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)2) 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text. (Source: Zabisco)3) 46.1% of people say a website's design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of the company. (Source: Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab)4) Publishers who use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who don't. (Source: AnsonAlex)5) Posts with videos attract 3 times more inbound links than plain text posts. (Source: SEOmoz)6) Visual content drives engagement. In fact, just one month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content -- photos and videos -- saw a 65% increase in engagement. (Source: Simply Measured)7) On Facebook, photos perform best for likes, comments, and shares as compared to text, video, and links. (Source: Dan Zarrella)8) 37% of Pinterest account holders log in a few times every week; 28% said they log in a few times a month; 15% log in once daily; 10% log in numerous times a day. (Source: PriceGrabber)9) 98% of people surveyed with a Pinterest account said they also have a Facebook and/or Twitter account (Source: PriceGrabber)10) Pinterest generated more referral traffic for businesses than Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined. (Source: Shareaholic)11) Pinterest drives sales directly from its website -- of people with Pinterest accounts, 21% have purchased an item after seeing it on Pinterest. (Source: PriceGrabber)12) 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online. The 25-34 age group watches the most online videos, and adult males spend 40% more time watching videos on the internet than females. (Sources: comScore and Nielsen)13) Over 60 hours of videos are uploaded each minute on YouTube.com. (Source: YouTube)14) 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute. (Source: YouTube)15) Viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them. (Source: MarketingSherpa)16) Mobile video viewing increased 35% from 2010 to 2011. (Source: Nielsen)17) 25 million smartphone users stream 4 hours of mobile video per month. 75% of smartphone users watch videos on their phones, 26% of whom use video at least once a day. (Sources: Ooyala and Ipsos)18) Mobile video subscription is expected to hit $16 billion in revenue by 2014, with over 500 million subscribers. (Source: Ooyala)19) Viewers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video. (Source: Internet Retailer)Have you had success using visual content? Share the ways you're integrating visual content into your marketing strategy in the comments!As always, CONTACT US anytime.